SC issues contempt notices to Army Chief, Defence Secretary

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday issued contempt notices to the Chief of Army Staff Gen Deepak Kapoor and Defence Secretary Vijay Singh for allegedly disobeying its direction on fixation of uniform pay scales and pension to Major Generals who retired before January 1, 1996.

A bench of Justices Altamas Kabir and Cyriac Joseph however, exempted the personal appearance of the two high ranking functionaries.

The apex court issued the notice on the contempt petition filed by Major Gen (retd) SPS Vains and 18 other retired Major Generals of the three defence services -- Army, Navy and Airforce complaining that the authorities had "wilfully disobeyed" its directions passed in a judgement dated September 9, 2008.

In the said judgement the apex court had directed that the "pay of pensioners in the rank of major generals in the army and its two other wings of the Defence Services be notionally fixed at the rate given to similar officers of the same rank after the revision of pay scales with effect from 1-1-1996." The grievance was that those who retired after 1-1-1996 were accorded higher pay fixation and pension.

The government was also directed to compute the pensionary benefits with prospective effect from the date of filing of the writ petition by the aggrieved officers and pay their arrears within three months with a 10 per cent interest.